


Skip Trace

by rainekind



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But It's Better If You Do-type romance, Detective Noir, If you get that reference you'll know what's going to happen., Modern Noir, Rival Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 06:37:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4596618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainekind/pseuds/rainekind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which private investigator Eruli Lavellan goes after the nefarious war criminal Fen'Harel while simultaneously solving political mysteries and searching for her missing boyfriend, Solas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skip Trace

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a mesh of things. First, I wanted to do a modern verse plus detectives and a hint of cyberpunk noir. Second, I love rivalmance and I love the idea of modern Fen'Harel being a "war criminal" who makes his point by blowing up empty buildings. Also hackers.

 

“Eruli.” 

“No.”

“ _Eruli._ ” 

“Go away.”

“Prissytits.”

“Creators–– _go away,_ Sera.”

A pillow launches itself at the blonde, who immediately catches it and throws it back. Her face twists into a displeased frown. Friends. Why does she have friends? Oh, right, because she has a _life,_ unlike Eruli, who hasn’t left her apartment in three days.

It’s a mess of a situation, but at least it’s less of one now than it has been lately. It’s been three years since Eruli’s ex-boyfriend, Solas, completely dropped off the map without warning, and she’s been diligently trying to find out where he went since then, using her job as a private investigator as both an income and a front. No luck, so far, but when Sera started using her prodigy-level hacking skills to help her roommate out, her humor and moral support boosted Eruli’s diligence… _and_ helped her to start becoming a normal elf again. At least the apartment is _cleaner_ now. Of course, there’s always Sera’s clutter – for example, the shrine of empty coffee cups becoming more crowded on her nightstand than the mosh pit at one of Maryden’s concerts, and the routine dumping of purse-contents to find something she lost in the void of her bag’s mouth – but Eruli has started to pay more attention to the world around her and thus keep the apartment fairly tidy. She’s even beginning to freckle again from going out into the sunlight, and Sera forced her to the hair salon to make her black hair look acceptable again. Shoulder-length, curled under, with the sidebangs that properly shield her right eye from the sun. She finally contacted Clan Lavellan, from whom she’s spending time away because of her full-ride scholarship to law school. She even got her Dalish magic license, so the city templars have stopped bothering her.

And then Solas disappeared the same week she graduated. In the wake of chaos and depression, Eruli lost contact with her clan. 

Yikes. Three years without writing the Keeper or visiting the ring of woods surrounding the city where the clan is … still bound to be staying, right? Marethari hasn’t written back yet since Eruli sent word that she's alright and she's sorry for everything. 

A month-long failure to find anything on Solas has left Eruli at the present, in a well-constructed pillow fortress at the foot of the couch. She has her forehead pressed to her knees, having taken an hour to relax and listen to her own heartbeat, and her thoughts are finally clear enough to continue working but it's rather nice in here and she's going to stay for a little longer –

“Oh, sure!” Sera continues, her left hand moving to her hip while the right gestures wildly into the air. “Not like I found anythin’ on fuckin’ Baldy, right? ’S all good.”

“You what?” Now, _that’s_ a prompt. Eruli jolts awake, tripping over her own feet as she scrambles over the couch towards her computer. “What did you find?” she breathes. “This had better be good, Sera–"  

“Shut it and I’ll tell you,” Sera quips in return. There’s already an irritated twitch in her eyebrows, and Eruli knows what that means: shut up or it’s your loss. Sera slides her phone out of her pocket and reads from a text, “The Hinterlattes Cafe. I ‘ave people there. Eggy-arse bought coffee, didn’t drink it, now he’s on his stupid Fadeware laptop wearin’ a broody face.”

“Did ––“

Did Solas, her boyfriend of _two_ years, truly go to the café her mother owns after _three_? After he left her without saying goodbye, without saying anything, and without a trace? 

Would he make such a mistake?

Well, it doesn't matter much, because they have an opportunity, and if Eruli doesn't take it, then she has no business being a detective. They have to get to Solas, and quickly. Perhaps he finally wants to be found. Perhaps he'll turn to her and allow her to beat his chest with her fists because how  _dare_ he hurt her like this and he'll run his hands through her hair like he used to ––

No. It isn't likely. He made a mistake, that's all, and she's too caught up in the past to pass up a chance for closure.

Eruli strides over to the coat rack next to their door and shrugs on her ankle-length jacket, teeth gritted together, lips pressed into a straight line, and brows furrowed. Her movements are precise, quick, and determined, and she already knows a shortcut to her mother's café. She’s on the war path. Sera grins. “I’m comin’, yeah?” she asks.  

“Of course,” Eruli says. She flips the hood over her head and pushes a teal umbrella into Sera’s chest without looking. If they’re going to get to Solas, they have to get to him fast, and that means running two blocks in the rain.

 

******

 

“FUCK!” Sera struggles to catch up to her roommate, having ditched her umbrella and using her own hood instead. Eruli is sprinting down the sidewalk, weaving through people as if she were made to do it, while the other elf bumps shoulders and pushes bodies out of the way – Maker damn it, _wait_ for her, Eruli – until she sods it all and starts shoving. Fuckin’ humans, elves, fuckin' standing in her damn way. Fuckin’. Fuck. 

Eruli's emotions are threatening even more than Sera to catch up to her. She's spent so much time building a wall around herself to focus on her job, finding people who were lost to time or other factors, that most people now think she's a Vivienne-level ice queen. Sera knows she isn't, but she would be the only one. It's better, it turns out, to realize that you don't matter as a person, but as a business. Eruli finds people, and gets money for it. Orlais and Ferelden turned out to be surprisingly lacking of private investigators, the only ones being court and police detectives. She does work for all of southern Thedas's desperate souls at once, from finding the cold-case missing persons behind the government's back to finding people who were avoiding debt collectors and changed their entire identities. Being consumed by trivial feelings would just slow her down. She wants to be  _notorious._

The door to the Hinterlattes Cafe bursts open, two panting forms in trench coats bathing the room in faint shadows. Eruli looks around wildly, sapphire eyes darting from table to table like a startled animal. It only took a minute, they have to have reached him. It isn’t as if Sera’s people stand out in a crowd ––

Empty, empty, empty. A dwarven couple at a corner booth about to kiss look over at them with disgruntled expressions. The intern at the counter makes a startled screeching noise and drops her phone.

There’s a table for one near the register – empty, the chair pushed out, a mug of coffee sitting untouched and still steaming.

 


End file.
